


i wondered if i could come home

by dogworldchampion



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reunion, the Beginning of the TMNT boxers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 11:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12386760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogworldchampion/pseuds/dogworldchampion
Summary: Amy rolls over, away from the setting sun wafting through her half-open blinds, in the hopes of catching a few more minutes of sleep before reality sets in, before she has to put back on a pantsuit and reopen Hawkins’ file and pretend everything is normal––and then she lands in an unexpected warm spot on his side of the bed. It smells, quite unmistakably, like him. She groans, curling tighter into the blankets, because she’s had this dream before. She shuts her eyes tight, feeling that brief jolt of hope ebb away into the familiar numbness that’s dulled her mind for more than six weeks.But the longer she lays there, the more she notices that something is off.





	i wondered if i could come home

**Author's Note:**

> okok so i originally posted this to my tumblr (@the-pontiac-bandit) but figured i'd add it on here, as well. essentially, jake's return from prison killed me dead and its FINE IM FINE OK?? come yell at me abt this fic or this season here in the comments or over there. 
> 
> (special thx to the usual crew, tumblr users jakelovesamy and elsaclack who regularly save my life lmao. and also to jokeperatla for giving my spotify a major upgrade. she's responsible for this fic's title, from first day of my life)

Amy slowly comes to, blinking hard against the golden late-afternoon light filtering through her window. She can’t quite seem to gather her thoughts - unsurprising, since these random midday crash-naps are the closest thing she’s gotten to proper rest since the night of the trial. Her eyes are dry and a little red-rimmed, crusty with sleep. She takes a few more moments to relish this calm, taking deep breaths and steeling herself against the long night to come. It’s been ages since she slept properly, centuries since she took a true deep breath, eons since her bed, with its freshly washed sheets devoid of crumbs and spills and the miscellaneous junk that’s made its home in her -  _their_  - apartment, has felt truly comfortable or familiar.

She rolls over, away from the setting sun wafting through her half-open blinds, in the hopes of catching a few more minutes of sleep before reality sets in, before she has to put back on a pantsuit and reopen Hawkins’ file and pretend everything is normal–

–and then she lands in an unexpected warm spot on  _his_  side of the bed. It smells, quite unmistakably, like  _him_. She groans, curling tighter into the blankets, because she’s  _had_  this dream before. She shuts her eyes tight, feeling that brief jolt of hope ebb away into the familiar numbness that’s dulled her mind for more than six weeks. She’ll open her eyes again in a second and the bed will be cold and she’ll get up and find her discarded blouse and Captain Holt will call her with an update and she’ll have ten texts from Charles about how to cry on cue for her upcoming podcast appearance.

But the longer she lays there, steeling herself against the evening of work to come, crouched around Captain Holt’s coffee table with Cheddar safely locked in the upstairs guest room and Kevin bringing out trays of desserts in which sour gummy flourishes are featured with an unusual frequency, the more she notices that  _something_  is off.

For one, the warmth isn’t going away as her mind slowly emerges from its post-nap fog. For another, the smell is different this time, tinged with sweat and the unmistakable scent she recognizes from the visiting room in South Carolina. She notes the water she can hear running in the bathroom sink. Finally, she registers the feeling of her too-clean sheets against her naked body, and her mind starts to catch up, first slowly then in a flood of images and memories that nearly overwhelms her.

Jake, sprinting out of the prison complex and into the vacant visiting room so fast he trips over a table. Jake, pinning her against the wall and slamming his mouth against hers, teeth clicking together through their smiles before her hands find his cheeks and his fingers tangle in her hair for a proper kiss, with no guards shouting about  _enough touching_  or  _too much contact_  (that is, until his hands rove to her belt loops, starting to finger with the bottom of her sunniest daisy-patterned blouse, when the guard behind them coughs pointedly, reminding them of their highly public position).

Jake, gripping her hand so tight it’s bruised in the taxi to the airport in Charleston and dropping kisses on her shoulder, neck, cheek, lips, when the driver isn’t looking. Jake, at their gate at the airport, so much calmer than JFK or LaGuardia, speaking a mile a minute with a wild look in his red-rimmed eyes about solitary and mashed potatoes and shivs and cannibals over heaving breaths that slow as she puts her hand around his shoulder and pulls him close. Jake, falling asleep against her shoulder, his face buried in her neck, on the first available flight back to New York, the overwhelming whirlwind of the past fifteen hours catching up with him.

Jake, foot tapping and knee jiggling in the cab ride home, face eager and bright as he hears about Holt cuffing Hawkins in glorious detail (he laughs when he hears that Charles arranged  _specially_  to leave Genevieve’s smelliest leftovers in the appropriate squad car for the duration of the arrest, ensuring the car was so cloaked in scent it was nearly visible, causing a severe bout of carsickness for one corrupt lieutenant on the way to the Metropolitan Detention Center).

Jake, slamming the door behind her and pushing her up against it as her purse and her keys clatter to the floor below the carefully positioned rack they’re intended to hang on. Jake, his eyes dark as he groans into her mouth while her hands search blindly for his belt. Jake, stopping as she backs him towards the couch to comment about how jumpsuits made him realize the fundamental uselessness of belts, causing her to laugh so hard she topples them both over the armrest of his massage chair.

Jake, his head curled into the crook of her neck, his breath tickling her bare shoulder as his arms hold her so tightly she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to get out, not that she’d ever want to.

As her whirling thoughts slow and the last remnants of sleep clear from her mind, the thought hits her:  _Jake_ is in her -  _their_  - bathroom. And suddenly, she jumps out of bed like someone lit a fire under her mattress, so quickly she trips over the sneakers she’d brought to South Carolina for him (quickly discarded when they made it back home in New York).

She snags his tactical village tshirt - oversized and soft and a little wrinkled from the plane - off the pile of clothes on their carpet and pulls it hastily over her head as she moves towards the bathroom, each step quicker than the one before, keeping pace with her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Finally, after what can only be a few seconds but feels like an  _eternity_ , she skids around the doorframe of their tiny bathroom to find Jake in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxers (she hadn’t realized they  _sold_ those in adult sizes until he pulled down his jeans after their eighth date). She hears music - if she’s not mistaken, it’s Taylor Swift’s “State of Grace” - filtering quietly through her headphones, plugged into his battered phone held together with packing tape, perched on his bag of toiletries precariously close to the edge of the sink.

“You should move that,” she says, her voice replete with the unique mixture of reproach and laughter that always seems to tinge it when she’s talking to him.

He moves to turn around, a little startled, and manages to knock his phone onto the tiled bathroom floor in the process. Amy winces a bit, taking a moment to be thankful that at least it’s (mostly) dry, before she’s overcome with the overwhelming  _normalcy_  of the moment. This could be any other day in their lives, almost as though her new normal had never existed. She watches the muscles of his back move as he bends down to pick up his phone, checking it for new cracks, and sees his shoulders quake with laughter under mussed curls that he kept surprisingly well-groomed in prison.

And before he can turn around to face her, before he can acknowledge her comment beyond the gentle laughter forcing its way out of his chest, before she even really knows what she’s doing, her arms are around his chest and she’s leaning into his back, resting her cheek up against his shoulder and taking in the warm feel of  _him_  all around her. It’s comforting and warm and still a little overwhelming, but she can feel the emptiness, the numbness and hard edges that have filled her for nearly two months, start to dissipate and soften within her, leaving light and warmth and pure, unadulterated happiness so filling she’s sure she’ll burst with the sensation.

She feels him start to move, can feel the muscles tensing and shifting beneath the sleeves of her overlarge shirt, but she just clutches him tighter, part of her still nervous that if she lets go, he might disappear again. She whines, just a little bit, as he unsuccessfully tries to pry her fingers apart, and she’s so focused on the feel of her face against his shoulder blade that she doesn’t immediately notice when his hands leave hers, reaching back to tickle under her arms.

Surprised, she squeals and pulls her elbows down to her sides, forcing her hands just loose enough for him to turn around. She buries her face against his chest, more careful to keep her arms close to her body now, and feels his laughter shaking both of them. On any other day, she’d be pressing him to get ready, reminding him that they have plans and tardiness would be considered unbelievably rude and _yes, even Charles would care, Jake_ , but instead, she lifts her face up, eyes already closed as she moves to kiss his cheek.

And she gets a mouthful of shaving cream.

In retrospect, she should’ve known. Should’ve seen the water running, noticed his razor on the sink, should’ve  _looked at his face in the mirror_  instead of staring at the Ninja Turtle on his butt, but instead, all she can do is spit (perhaps a tad dramatically) into the sink, shaving cream coating her lips and chin, while she watches a half-bearded Jake laugh at her from behind in the mirror.

“You  _jerk_!” she finally chokes out between handfuls of water to clean out her mouth (who knew shaving cream tasted so  _gross_ ).

His only response is more laughter. “I saw it coming, but  _Ames_ –it was just–that was too good to pass up,” he gasps.

She pushes his chest gently, not hard enough to actually send him out of her space, rolling her eyes at this goofball. She takes a moment to wonder at the hope and the light that sparkles so familiarly in his eyes - somehow, remarkably, prison didn’t quench even a bit of it. She can’t begin to imagine what it was actually like, and she’s sure the coming days and weeks and months will be full of times to talk and cry and be  _scared_ for each other. But for now, he’s  _here_  and the light in his eyes is making the whole apartment seem just a tad brighter, as though he literally makes the colors around her more vivid.

She wants to find words for this feeling, for the way that her heart seems to have settled back into its proper cavity and her stomach has calmed and her hands have stopped shaking and her lungs can expand fully again, but it’s a little bit scary, this idea that she can’t breathe without him, and there’ll be time for that later. It is the most  _relieving_  thought in the world that there will be time to be vulnerable and desperate and honest and joyful and intimate and silly and everything that falls between - no more hour-limited conversations across a cafeteria table in a prison.

So when he moves fully beside her, pressing his shoulder into hers until she moves away from the mirror to make room for him, she just smiles and shifts right instead. There’s a draft on her bare legs (she blames her perpetually-hot boyfriend, who must’ve turned down the AC a thousand times since he moved in, much to her chagrin), so she inches closer, taking advantage of the warmth radiating off Jake’s bare chest.

Their conversation is small and light as he picks up his razor again - the thoughtless banter she’s enjoyed ever since she learned to live with his garbage dump of a desk has returned without a single hitch or break, with an ease that shocks her. So as she dries her face and pulls out her makeup bag, she can’t manage to wipe the smile off her face long enough to properly apply her foundation.

“Can’t believe you’re shaving the beard already,” she comments lightly, elbowing his side, somehow still soft despite all those days in prison. “Took you  _weeks_  to shave the tips after Florida.”

“Yeah…” his voice trails, hitches a little bit at the memory of Florida and all the lost time they’re still mourning. Then, the thought of a retort lights up his face, easing the sadness behind his eyes. “I just figured your thighs would thank me.”

She rolls her eyes, trying to think of a retort, but the chafed skin between her legs is suddenly at the forefront of her mind, her tired quads groaning protest while her skin burns, and despite her best efforts to hold still and deny her goofball boyfriend the satisfaction, she shifts her weight.

“Ha! Told ya so!” he shouts triumphantly, and he dives onto one knee, wincing as his tired joints hit the tile floor. His mostly-bearded face, still covered in shaving cream, goes right for her thighs, exposed below the suddenly too-short hem of his t-shirt, and she reacts on instinct, jumping back so that she trips down onto their closed toilet, laughing as she clenches her thighs tight, muscles screaming in protest as she squeals.

He’s so taken aback by her fall that he pauses before lunging at her again, shoulders shaking with laughter, and it’s then that she sees her opportunity. While his eyes are squeezed shut, his arms against the cabinets, bracing himself to keep his balance on his toes, she grabs his uncapped shaving cream off the counter and squeezes.

Immediately, a jet of white foam coats his hair and face. His eyes open in shock as she shifts her aim to his chest. He laughs and jumps for her arm, but her hand-to-hand combat training kicks in and she shifts sideways, tossing the can to her other hand and letting Jake slide past her, spraying his shoulders as he passes.

“No fair!” he gasps, coughing a little bit as he aspirates some shaving cream. Their laughter mingles, filling up the air in their otherwise-silent apartment, lighting up corners and expanding the rooms that had been growing oppressively smaller, threatening to suffocate Amy without Jake’s personality to prop up her walls.

Her eyes are screwed shut, her arms crossed over her stomach with the shaving cream can clutched against her side, all pretenses at a proper defense forgotten. Jake’s eyes light up at the opportunity for retaliation, but at her bright face, harsh worry-lines eased into a scrunched-up smile in his presence, he takes a few seconds of pause to drink in the sight of her. He’d stared at her picture for hours every day, trying to imbue himself with her bright smile and her silly grimace in a Hawaiian t-shirt, but no mashed-potato art or grainy printout could compare to Amy Santiago, radiantly happy and hysterically laughing in front of him, a left hand with an invitingly bare ring finger clutching his shaving cream.

Finally, after an eternity that must last only a few seconds, in which thoughts of white dresses and bigger apartments and hours spent actually fitting a car seat into a  _much_  safer car (but never a minivan) and a hundred thousand more moments like this one flash through his mind, he remembers why he ended up crouched on his bathroom floor in the first place, so he scrapes some shaving cream off his chest and throws it at her face.

It lands with a  _splat_  and a gasp from its target, who immediately holds up her can defensively.

“Don’t you  _dare_ , Peralta.” She attempts to sound menacing, puts on the face that has perps quaking at the sight of her, but he knows better, so he just scrapes another handful off his left shoulder and prepares to throw.

As she watches, bracing for impact, a calculating look crosses her face. “You don’t wanna do that,” she starts slowly. “Check the t-shirt you’re about to ruin.”

She watches, satisfied as his eyes notice, apparently for the first time, his favorite t-shirt, cloaking her smaller frame. He mutters a curse under his breath as she continues, “You wouldn’t wanna mess up your favorite t-shirt.” She raises her eyebrows, clearly thinking she’s won the argument.

“I mean, you already ruined my favorite boxers,” he retorts, gesturing down to Leonardo’s face on his shorts, nearly entirely obscured by the white foam she’d smothered him with only a few minutes earlier. He does his best to imbue his voice with hurt, trying to guilt her into allowing a retaliatory hit.

“Good.”

She looks so serious, so entirely thrilled that his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxers have been rendered entirely unwearable, that he can’t maintain his hurt facade. Instead, he breaks down laughing once again, taking her down with him at the sheer ridiculousness of their situation. She tries with a shaking hand to wipe the shaving cream off her face, muttering through scarce gasps about having to reapply her foundation, but he lets his sit, having far too much fun to try to clean up.

Slowly, Amy regains her breath, her body weak with the force of her laughter. Her abs are sore, and she lets the shaving cream can clatter to the floor. The sound startles Jake, bringing him back to the reality of his rosy-cheeked, mostly-naked girlfriend. The look on his face sends a blush onto Amy’s cheeks and up through the tips of her ears - the vulnerability of the blatant adoration on his face makes her want to simultaneously laugh, cry, propose, and grab him for a kiss.

She settles on the final option, thinking to herself that there’ll be an eternity for the others. So Amy pulls him up onto his knees and towards her, wrapping her legs around his waist as she wipes his mouth free of shaving cream before pulling him in for their billionth lingering kiss of the day. She’d missed these, almost more than she’d missed the desperate, passionate kisses he’d spent the morning on. His lips move against hers languidly, his shaving-cream-covered hands finding her back and dirtying his shirt, although he’s careful to stay away from her hair.

She smiles against his mouth and he pauses, just for a second, breaking away to look up at her. “Glad to be back,” he says, clearly and loudly, as though he wants to make sure she hears it, understands just how much he means it.

She smiles, but before she can even begin to find the words to reply, to tell him just how much it means that he’s kneeling on the bathroom floor covered in shaving cream, making dumb jokes and wearing her least favorite underwear, he’s gone in to kiss her neck. She lets herself enjoy it for a second, tilts her head back and digs her fingers into his shoulders, before using her hands to push him off.

“Come on - we only have 20 minutes before we have to leave, and there’s way too much clean up to do,” she reminds him, surveying the bathroom.

Jake looks at her, with the puppy dog eyes that melt her heart and her resolve every time he pulls them out, and whines, “But Charles won’t care if we’re late…”

She plants a softer kiss on his forehead before standing and grabbing her hairbrush, tossing him a hand towel in the process. “But Captain Holt will. And anyway - we have forever for that.”


End file.
